


Bittersweet & Delicate

by woakiees



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidents, Comfort, F/M, Sad and Happy, Wedding Rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28275090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woakiees/pseuds/woakiees
Summary: "Shara would slip it onto a chain for him whenever he’d wake up from a nightmare. Whenever he was scared of the monsters hiding under his bed or whenever there was a storm raging on outside, she’d clasp it around his neck to wear for the night. She’d promise him that it would keep him safe, protect him from all of the bad and bring him peace, make him feel at ease enough to rest. It always worked."
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Bittersweet & Delicate

Poe’s never been good with silence. He’s always been a loud person with a roaring personality to match, full of charm and charisma that he’d learned from his father. He’s always talking, always spewing stories and telling jokes to the people around him, and in the rare moment’s when he's verbally silent, you know that his mind is racing with ideas and memories replaying through his head.

But now, he’s just quiet. So quiet you’re beginning to worry about him. He’s sitting completely still at the island with his chin resting in the palm of his hand, and you’re leaning against the counter opposite of him, watching him closely, your eyes never straying from his face, just like his never moved from the small yellow envelope in front of him.

He’s been staring at that envelope all afternoon.

You know what’s in it. You know why he’s quiet, why he can’t do anything but stare.

You know he’s waiting to open it until Kes gets there, but part of you wonders if he’d even be able to do it without him. He’s not ready.

He’s scared.

Fear — another bullet point on the list of things he’s never been good with. It makes him shut down, makes him forget to take care of himself until it passes or until he buries it down far enough to ignore.

But he has you, and if you can do anything, you can take care of him.

You know he hasn’t eaten, there aren’t any dishes in the dishwasher and you’d just unloaded it that morning. You honestly can’t remember if you’ve even seen him drink anything.

So that’s what you grab first. You slide the glass of water across the counter towards him, and he glances at it briefly before looking up at you with appreciation evident in his eyes. He takes it and raises it to his lips, finishing the whole thing in just a few seconds. You immediately pour him another glass, then silently move around the kitchen, trying to figure out what you can cook from what you have on hand.

You decide on some soup and a grilled cheese — simple, easy, comforting and fit for the occasion as well as the cold and snow outside. He finishes the soup first, and though he only eats half of the sandwich, that’s good enough for you.

“Thank you,” he mumbles once he’s finished, and he stands to clear his dishes but you grab them before he can, kissing his cheek in the process.

His cheeks turn a little pink like they always do, and you’re happy to see that even in his current state, your kiss can still make him blush.

“No problem, sweet boy.”

Poe smiles. He fidgets in his seat, and you can tell by the expression on his face that he feels awkward and unsure. Two more things he’s unfamiliar with. You leave his dishes in the sink to worry about later, then move to sit next to him.

You take his hand in yours and immediately notice that his fingers are slippery, covered in sweat but you don’t even flinch. You lean forward and kiss the tip of his nose this time, and the way that he scrunches his face makes your chest bloom.

“You doing okay?” you ask, though it seems a little redundant.

He shrugs his shoulders gently, takes a deep breath and sits up a little straighter. That tells you more than enough — he’s trying to make sure you don’t worry about him, he wants to appear like he’s held together by more than a few frayed threads.

“Just a little stressed out baby.”

“Liar.”

Poe sighs and shrugs again. He’s quiet for a moment, and when he does decide to speak, his voice waivers.

“I just...what if this isn’t it?”

Your arms are immediately around him, your hand on his head so you can cradle him against your chest. He lets you hold him, but doesn’t give you a chance to speak.

“The crash was over twenty years ago, there’s no way-”

He’s interrupted by a knock on your front door, and neither of you get up to answer it. You know it’s just Kes, and Kes knows he can just walk inside. He’s early, and Poe’s face falls. He’s not ready.

But again, you don’t think he ever will be. Even with Kes there to help him through it, even with you.

You listen as Kes kicks his shoes off in the hallway and hangs his jacket up on a hook. He sighs, and it’s quiet for a few seconds before you hear his footsteps walking towards you. He’s nervous too, you could feel it the second he walked through the door.

It’s warranted.

He takes a seat next to his son, his eyes fixating on the envelope sitting in front of him, just like Poe’s.

It still catches you off guard sometimes, how insanely alike the two Dameron’s look, how they share so many of the same mannerisms. Their smile is the same, their laugh is the same. They both rub the back of their neck when they’re embarrassed, and their cheeks turn the subtlest shade of pink.

They both have beautiful, breathtaking brown eyes, but you’ve seen pictures and know that Poe’s are one hundred percent Shara’s.

You know that Kes thinks the same every single time he looks at his son, because he gets this look in his eyes that’s so tender and warm or, depending on the day, far off and distant and sad.

Right now, it’s the sadness that prevails.

Kes sighs and shakes his head just a little bit. He runs a hand through his hair and pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose before lightly touching Poe’s shoulder, offering him support and reassurance, but you know Kes needs the contact for himself too. His hand is shaking.

“You okay kiddo?” he asks quietly, clearing his throat a little bit to hide the way it cracks.

You notice, but Poe doesn’t seem to. He only gives his father the same shrug he gave you, but he doesn’t look at him. He just keeps his eyes on the envelope.

Kes sighs again, and you bite your bottom lip, unsure if you should leave the two of them alone so they can have this moment together or if you should excuse yourself into another room. Kes glances towards you, almost like he can sense what you’re thinking — you’d always been close with him. He shakes his head, silently asking you to stay. You nod once.

Another round of silence takes over the room, with Poe still staring at the envelope and both you and Kes staring at him. Again, it’s Kes who breaks the silence.

“Do you want me to do it?”

Poe stays completely still, completely quiet. For a moment, you’re not sure he even heard his father’s question, but he finally shakes his head and reaches forward. His hands are shaking too.

He takes the envelope and turns it over his hands a couple of times, his teeth catching on his bottom lip while he prepares himself to open it. Kes keeps his hand on Poe’s arm, and you gently start to play with the hair at the nape of his neck — something you know Shara used to do to calm him down.

“Poe we don’t have to do this right now,” you remind him, your voice as gentle as you could possibly make it.

“No,” he answers immediately after, shaking his head hastily. “No, I don’t wanna wait any longer.”

He tears the envelope open before you and Kes can even blink. He hesitates again, for just a moment before reaching inside and grabbing a small card, a short message scribbled across it in messy handwriting. He passes it to his father, who also has no interest in reading it just then. They just want to see what else is inside.

Poe reaches back in and pulls out a clear plastic bag, but his fingers are hiding whatever sits inside. He stops again, takes a few deep breaths, then slowly opens his fist.

That breath was pointless, because all of the air comes rushing from his lungs in a single second. Kes immediately turns and buries his face into his son’s neck, and you watch as his shoulders begin to shake.

Sitting in Poe’s palm is a simple yet beautiful silver ring, one that you’ve only seen in pictures but instantly recognize. It’s unmistakingly Shara’s — no one had to look at the engraving to know for sure. It’s hers, without a single doubt it’s hers.

“Oh my God,” Kes breathes, picking his head back up to look at it again, almost like he’s making sure it’s still there. “Fuck.”

Poe’s still so quiet, just staring at the ring in his hand, completely entranced by it. You wipe at the tears running down your cheeks, then hug him again, kissing the top of his head over and over.

He brings it closer to his face, wanting to get a better look at the ring he hasn’t seen in over twenty years, the ring he used to play with when he was a small boy and couldn’t sleep at night. He’s told you the story before, so many times.

Shara would slip it onto a chain for him whenever he’d wake up from a nightmare. Whenever he was scared of the monsters hiding under his bed or whenever there was a storm raging on outside, she’d clasp it around his neck to wear for the night. She’d promise him that it would keep him safe, protect him from all of the bad and bring him peace, make him feel at ease enough to rest. It always worked.

He still has the chain, he’s worn it every single day since he was eight years old, but the ring had gone down with Shara, buried in the sand along with the remnants of her broken and charred plane. Kes had gone to look for it so many times after the crash, but he’d never been able to find it. The only thing he’d managed to bring back were burnt pieces of metal — a piece for him and Poe each that they both held onto with pride.

And so a month before, when Poe got an email from a man claiming to have found his mother’s ring while he was surveying the area with his metal detector, from a man who said he’d spent the last six months trying to track Poe or Kes down, he hadn’t believed it. It just didn’t seem possible.

But there it was, sitting in the palm of his hands. The man had even gotten it professionally cleaned.

All three of you sit there and just continue to stare at it, your emotions staying somewhere between disbelief and awe. You don’t know how much time passes before Poe finally shifts, holding the ring out to his father.

Kes takes it. He touches it so carefully, so gently, almost like it’ll break between his fingers. There’s still tears rolling down his cheeks, and you can’t tell if they’re happy or if they’re sad. You figure it’s somewhere in between.

“What are you going to do with it?” Poe asks quietly, his gaze flickering between the ring and the other man’s face.

Kes furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head. Ever since he found out that someone might have found the ring, there’s only been one thing on his mind, one option.

“What am _I_ going to do with it? What are _you_ going to do with it?”

Poe mirrors his father’s expression, and again you’re reminded of how eerily similar they are. “What do you mean? Dad, that’s yours.”

“It was your mother’s.”

“Yeah, and-”

“No.” Kes shakes his head again and reaches for Poe’s wrist. He flips his arm so he can set the ring back into his hand, then closes his son’s fingers around the piece of jewelry. “She’d want you to hold onto it.”

His eyes flicker to you, for just a moment before he looks back at Poe.

“Find someone to give it to one day or something.”

Poe’s quiet again, for almost a minute before he finally speaks again, his voice quiet, almost timid. “Are you sure?”

Kes nods, a small smile playing at his lips. He squeezes Poe’s wrist before letting go.

“Positive kiddo.”

Poe nods too, but he still really only stares, not sure if he wants to cry or smile.

“I can put it on your chain, if you want,” you offer, already moving to unclasp it from around his neck.

That elicits a smile from him, but you’re too distracted to notice.

So distracted trying to get the chain undone, you also miss the look he shares with his father in that moment.

There’s only one thing on his mind, one option.

That ring, his mother’s ring belongs with you.

Now he just has to find the right moment to give it to you.

**Author's Note:**

> kes dameron is a dilf i'm sorry. remember to leave a like and a kudos and all that shit :)


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